When I was hit upside the head with own personal faith crisis, I felt so alone.

I didn't know who I could talk to about my doubts. I was scared.

I started with my bishop and he told me that the doubts I was having were from satan. I left his office feeling even more boggled than when I walked in.

Satan? Really? Ugg.

Yeah, this was not going to end well.

At this point, it was probably 2003/4 and I hadn't even started my deep dive into mormon history at this point, I just had "doubts."

2006 is when I jumped off the high dive, ALL IN.

There was no CES Letter at the time. I just started reading everything and anything I could get my hands on. I was on a mission to learn all I could about the church. I mean, it was true and so nothing that I read could really prove otherwise.

LOLOLOLOL (insert the BIGGEST eye roll here)

Yeah, you know what I mean.

I remember feeling more alone than I ever had before. I felt like an alien in my own home, my church, family, extended family, and with my friends.

I felt like people dismissed me, brushed off my thoughts and feelings and didn't take me as seriously. I felt marginalized when I did bring up what I was discovering and I would be told to pray harder, obey more, just have faith, and all these questions would be answered in the next life. yada yada yada.

No, that was NOT going to cut it.

I wanted to be taken seriously. I was being serious and my questions could not be answered.

No, I didn't want to go sin and drink and have sex and be wild. I was perfecting fine keeping all the commandments, covenants, life choices I made, all that I had been taught, if it was true. I was on a truth hunting mission. I wanted to know if the church was true. I was way beyond needing to read my scriptures more, pray more, have more faith. I had done that for 36 years.

Does this all sound familiar?

The whole reason I do what I do is that you know you are not alone.

I have walked this road, I felt all the pain. I know it is real and I will never marginalize you, make you feel crazy or dismiss anything you are feeling as you walk this path.

You are opening a door to the unknown and walking through it EVEN THO you are scared as hell.

You are not alone.

You are not crazy.

You ARE smart.

You ARE brave.

You ARE beyond amazing.

I am thankful our paths have crossed. When we meet, I know that we understand each other.

I love when you ask if I am Soul Searching Girl (a reference to my early youtube videos.) We immediately understand each other. Our connection is real. We "get" each other.

I know you straight away and I love you.

Stand tall my dear. You have done nothing wrong. You have nothing to be ashamed of. You are following your own intuition. You are trusting yourself. You are one of the bravest people I know.

Thank you for showing up in my life.

Together, we got this.

I can't wait to walk this journey with you. Guide you for a few steps along the way.

You kinda need to roll around in it and hang out there for awhile. Marinate. It is part of the process of this thing called a faith crisis.

I expect nothing less. You just had your world bust right open. Of course you are going to feel all sorts of emotions.

We have been talking about this all month.

But, one step, I do not want you to skip, is being in this uncomfortable and painful place. The muck. It is part of it.

Let the tears fall.

Hide under the covers.

Be angry.

Sit with it.

Swear.

Laugh at the stupidity of it all.

Mourn the loss.

I promise, there will come a day when you are ready to not be in that mucky space anymore. The time will come when you are ready to stand up, dust off, and move forward.

Only you know when it is time.

In the meantime, allow all of the things I mentioned above.

This is what being gentle with yourself looks like.

Do not feel like you have to figure this out quickly. Think about how many years you were conditioned to believe this certain way. There is a good amount of unraveling that will need to be done. Let it unravel in its own time.

Then, you will rise like a phoenix. You will want to figure it out. You will want to heal. You will want to make it all make sense. You will want to move forward. You will want to do whatever it will take. You will want.

You are going through something huge. A faith crisis is big. It is everything. Leaving your religion is very life shattering. It has rocked your world.

Your emotions are all over the place. You are feeling all the feels. Very deeply.

Part of what you are going through most likely includes worrying about how your decisions are affecting your family and friends, yes?

Listen, this is a hard one for some of us to understand. It has taken me awhile to get to this point.

You are not responsible for anyone else's thoughts and feelings.

You are having your own thoughts and feelings about what is going on with you and all you are discovering with and about your faith crisis.

You get to manage your own mind around all of these issues and so do your loved ones.

You get to move forward with your new way of thinking and so do your loved ones.

You are not in charge of how "they" will respond or react or experience emotions. Let them go through their own line of thinking, even if it does not align with yours.

You can let go of the feeling bad about how your decisions are "making them feel" because you cannot control that. THEY are responsible for how they feel.

You work on you. That is it.

When we grow up with a very specific religious frame work, part of that includes feelings of worthiness, being on the path, judgement, "being" a certain way and all of those things affect others, right? It is very much part of the conditioning you have gone through.

What if, you could put down the burden of carrying around how everyone else is going to think about this?

Read that sentence again. What if?

As we have discussed before, those in your life will have lots of thoughts and opinions about what you are doing. Let them. But also do not let it keep you stifled.

Work on managing your own thoughts and feelings. Let the rest go.

Easier said than done, you are thinking?

Yes, this is why you practice.

Creating new thoughts, that you can believe, take practice.

When you believe the thought, "I am not responsible for how others feel" you will begin to feel better about what you are going through.

This is the magical work of coaching. We will work on this. We will practice.

Of course, we will dive deep into what you are going through specifically, but do you see where I am going with this?

Can you be be open to thinking the thought...

"I am not responsible for how others feel about my decision to leave the church."

Years ago, I had a light bulb moment. I would love to share it with you.

When I first started down my faith crisis induced studying, I felt like I should hide my new discoveries, in fear of offending one of my mormon friends or family members.

Afraid that someone who knew me when I was VERY active and "all in" with my belief in the mormon church, would see something I was reading in public or a comment I would leave on Facebook, and be upset.

{{{ Fear of what others maybe thinking of you is a thing, right? I LOVE coaching you through ways of getting a handle on that. it is totally possible. }}}

Then one day, I decided to look at it differently.

What if it was helpful for someone to see what I was reading and my thoughts about it?

Maybe my journey and my discoveries could help someone else.

Maybe being visible in my new way of life and thinking is what I should be doing, instead of feeling like I had to hide it.

It was such a fun way to look at what I was going through. I knew I couldn't be the only one feeling all these things.

The same goes for you too. You may not need to put yourself out there in a huge visible way, but just knowing that someone in your circle may love knowing what you are going through, can be life changing.

Imagine that!

When you lean into your new authentic self, you will be amazed at all the light bulb moments you will have. They are coming! Keep at it.

I am excited for you! You may not feel that same excitement yet, but it is coming.

You know what the best part about being a grown up is? You get to do whatever you want. Right?

Good or bad. There will always be consequences for our decisions, but it is your prerogative, to make the decisions for your life.

You get to decide the kind of person you want to be, no matter what.

So, guess what that means, you get to change your mind about anything, at any point in your life, whenever you want to.

I know we can dive down the rabbit hole with this line of thinking. But, you get my point right? This is a fascinating topic. We can explore it in detail at a later time. But for today, I am keeping it basic.

No matter what, you get to make decisions for your life, even if others do not agree with them, because you are the grown up. (and yes, I am talking to grown ups here in this blog)

This goes for your decision about the church too.

If you were baptized into the church at 8 years old and stayed on the path outlined for you because of that decision at 8 years old, you bet you get to change your mind later on down the road if you feel that is best for you.

I love the saying from Maya Angelou...

"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, you do better."

If you have studied this out in your mind (see what I did there?) and you have come to a conclusion for yourself, follow it, wherever it may lead.

We have already discussed not knowing exactly where you will end up, in another blog, but you do have an internal knowing. Your own intuition. Always follow it.

You are now a grown up and you get to change your mind. Even about the big stuff.

Give yourself this freedom. Also, allow this freedom for others, even if, your loved ones do not see it the same way you do. They are also grown ups, making their own decisions about their own life.

I imagine this stirs up a lot for you? So many emotions, thoughts and feelings have come up for you over the course of your paradigm shift.

What is your gut response? Yes. No. It is different for many.

Life has change, yes? We know this for sure.

I want you to really think about this. Would you change your paradigm shift? Meaning, would you go back to before?

I think of it like one of those visual images from the 90s. remember those? You would stare at the image and let your eyes focus until you could see the image within the image. For the most part, once you saw it, you could always see it. Hard to unsee it, right?

Learning what you have about the truthiness of the church, is hard to unsee.

Would go back if you could? Back to the ignorance is bliss question. Back to living your life oblivious to the actual truthfulness of the church.

Red pill, blue pill. {{{If you have not seen The Matrix, stop and watch. I will wait.}}}

I know this is all hypothetical. We can't go back. But what I want you to think about is, you get to decide how to look at what you have been through. Yes, there are stages to this process, but eventually, you get to decide how to be a person who has walked through this door of a faith transition.

How do you show up in the world now, with all that you do know? I bet you are more skeptical? More questioning, of just about everything? I know I am.

Do you let this be a part of you that gives you more perspective to life? Do you harbor resentment for the rest of your life? Can you possibly see the beauty in this process? Seeing the beauty may take a while for you to get to, but even that is possible.

I want you to write down all your thoughts about the church. The good. The bad. The ugly. Let it all flow out of you. Get it down on paper. Look at it. Feel it. Can you separate the thoughts from facts? See the thoughts you have created around the story of what a faith crisis is for you? Vs. What is true.

What do you make it all mean? Is ignorance really bliss? Having your eyes opened to reality, may be jarring at first, but would you want it any other way?

Again, would you change this experience? If not, how do you choose to look at it?